More T’Bird progress.

Inspired by a challenge from my pal “Crafty B”, I hit the ‘Bird again this afternoon, finishing up the metal work on the right front fender and headlight. I “tucked” the fender around the Caddy bezel, and filled all the resultant gaps. Then, the headlight bucket got welded into the body, and all the gaps filled where I had to re-shape the pan under the headlights.

The front bumper needs to be trimmed and re-shaped to make it fit the body line better, so I spent a little time figuring out how to accomplish that. An inch needs to come off each side to have the side of the bumper line up with the fender lip. This will require cutting the ends off the bumper, trimming the needed material off, re-shaping the arch at the top, and fitting the end back on the center part. I don’t want to cut it out of the middle, that would narrow the grill opening, which I don’t want to do, and the brackets would no longer fit. So, it’ll get cut up. As long as I’m cutting, the rectangular park/turn lights are going away, to be replaced with round driving lights frenched into the bumper.

I’m also showing the modifications made to the dash, as it got dropped along with the windshield frame. That meant cutting it all apart, raising the “pods” the instruments and glove box are in. This actually makes the dash more closely match the “humps” in the tonneau, which fade into the character “humps” in the deck lid.

It’s all coming together.

New fender peak to match the Caddy headlights

Fender tucked around the Caddy headlight bezel.

Dash mods.

New profile.

And, just so you don’t think I spent all of this glorious October day in the shop, here’s a photo of some fall color on the way home from Crafty B’s Geezer Coffee this morning. I drove the Diamond T, a great day all in all!